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NEW YORK (AP) -- The Notorious B.I.G. is being remembered by collaborator Sean "Diddy" Combs and his wife, Faith Evans, 20 years after the rapper's killing....
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MOSCOW (AP) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday for talks focusing on the situation in Syria and Israeli concerns about the role of Iran and its proxies there....
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(Vatican Radio) The Vatican has released the programme for Pope Francis’ one-day visit to Milan on Saturday, 25 March 2017.The Holy Father will begin the day with an encounter with the Rom, Islamic, and immigrant families of the ‘White Houses’ in the Forlanini quarter of the city.After speaking with priests and consecrated persons, he will visit the inmates of the San Vittore Prison for lunch and then celebrate Holy Mass in Monza Park.The final appointment of the day is a meeting with several recently confirmed young people in the Meazza-San Siro di Milano Stadium.Below please find the full programme:07:10 Departure from Roma-Fiumicino Airport08:00 Arrival at Milano-Linate Airport08:30 Visit to the Forlanini q...
(Vatican Radio) The Vatican has released the programme for Pope Francis’ one-day visit to Milan on Saturday, 25 March 2017.
The Holy Father will begin the day with an encounter with the Rom, Islamic, and immigrant families of the ‘White Houses’ in the Forlanini quarter of the city.
After speaking with priests and consecrated persons, he will visit the inmates of the San Vittore Prison for lunch and then celebrate Holy Mass in Monza Park.
The final appointment of the day is a meeting with several recently confirmed young people in the Meazza-San Siro di Milano Stadium.
Below please find the full programme:
07:10 Departure from Roma-Fiumicino Airport
08:00 Arrival at Milano-Linate Airport
08:30 Visit to the Forlanini quarter – “White Houses” of Milan
Meeting with two families in their respective apartments
Meeting with residents in the square of the “White Houses” quarter
Encounter with representatives of Rom, Islamic and immigrant families and inhabitants
10:00 Meeting with priests and consecrated persons in the Duomo
11:00 Angelus prayer and blessing in the Duomo
11:30 Visit to the San Vittore Prison
12:30 Lunch with a hundred detainees in the Terzo Raggio of the San Vittore Prison
13:45 Transfer by car to Monza Park
15:00 Holy Mass in Monza Park
16:30 Transfer by car to the Meazza-San Siro di Milano Stadium
17:30 Meeting with recently confirmed young people at the Meazza-San Siro di Milano Stadium
18:30 Farewell and departure from Milano-Linate Airport
19:30 Arrival at Roma-Fiumicino Airport
Cardinal Giuseppe Bertello, president of the commission governing the Vatican City State said he was happy to return to Ghana, where he served as Apostolic Nuncio between 1987 and 1991.The Cardinal was in Ghana as Pope Francis’ Special Envoy to Ghana for the 40th Anniversary of diplomatic relations between Ghana and the Holy See and the 60th anniversary of Ghana’s Independence on 6 March.“I am honoured, and I am also glad to be with you. I always say that Ghana is my first love. I have spent 25 years as an Apostolic Nuncio, but Ghana is my first love,” Cardinal Bertello stated.He presided over the re-consecration of Ghana to the Sacred Heart of Jesus at an Ecumenical and Interfaith Prayer Session which took place at the Holy Spirit Cathedral. The re-consecration prayer service was attended by over a thousand people including the Republican President of Ghana, Speaker of Parliament, the Chief Justice, National Chief Imam, traditional leaders and leaders of o...
Cardinal Giuseppe Bertello, president of the commission governing the Vatican City State said he was happy to return to Ghana, where he served as Apostolic Nuncio between 1987 and 1991.
The Cardinal was in Ghana as Pope Francis’ Special Envoy to Ghana for the 40th Anniversary of diplomatic relations between Ghana and the Holy See and the 60th anniversary of Ghana’s Independence on 6 March.
“I am honoured, and I am also glad to be with you. I always say that Ghana is my first love. I have spent 25 years as an Apostolic Nuncio, but Ghana is my first love,” Cardinal Bertello stated.
He presided over the re-consecration of Ghana to the Sacred Heart of Jesus at an Ecumenical and Interfaith Prayer Session which took place at the Holy Spirit Cathedral. The re-consecration prayer service was attended by over a thousand people including the Republican President of Ghana, Speaker of Parliament, the Chief Justice, National Chief Imam, traditional leaders and leaders of other Christian Denominations.
Cardinal Bertello also presided over the thanksgiving Mass at the Holy Spirit Cathedral and joined in watching the Independence parade held at the Black Star Square.
During a ‘Media Encounter’ held at the Apostolic Nunciature, Ghana’s Apostolic Nuncio and titular archbishop of Sulci, Jean-Marie Speich told Ghana’s media that the nunciature is always ready to promote peace and development in the country.
The Government of Ghana has in the meantime assured of continued cooperation with friendly states such as the Holy See in order to uphold and promote stronger institutions for good governance.
Speaking at an earlier event at the Apostolic Nunciature, Samuel Kofi Dzamesi, the Minister for Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs, pledged that Ghana would continue to deepen diplomatic relations with the Holy See to the mutual benefit of citizens and the people of faith.
The Minister said he was confident that the close and longstanding relations with Holy See would continue to be nurtured and further consolidated for the benefit of all.
(Damian Avevor in Ghana)
Email: engafrica@vatiradio.va
Vatican City, Mar 9, 2017 / 03:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Barbara Jatta, the newest director of the Vatican museums, and the first woman to hold the position, said that working with art was a natural path for her to follow – and she can’t imagine a better place to do so.On her extensive background in art, Barbara Jatta told CNA: “I don't think I chose it.” Her mother and sister are both restorers, her grandmother was a painter and her grandfather was an architect, she said. “All my family is in the art world…”“So I grew up in art, looking at art, going to museums with my family. It was really something so natural for me to choose this,” Jatta said.“I don't feel I have a career, I have the privilege of working with what I like. With what I really think is important for me to do and I'm doing it in the best place I can ever imagine.”Asked what she thinks will be the greatest challenge in her new position, she ...
Vatican City, Mar 9, 2017 / 03:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Barbara Jatta, the newest director of the Vatican museums, and the first woman to hold the position, said that working with art was a natural path for her to follow – and she can’t imagine a better place to do so.
On her extensive background in art, Barbara Jatta told CNA: “I don't think I chose it.” Her mother and sister are both restorers, her grandmother was a painter and her grandfather was an architect, she said. “All my family is in the art world…”
“So I grew up in art, looking at art, going to museums with my family. It was really something so natural for me to choose this,” Jatta said.
“I don't feel I have a career, I have the privilege of working with what I like. With what I really think is important for me to do and I'm doing it in the best place I can ever imagine.”
Asked what she thinks will be the greatest challenge in her new position, she said bringing “harmony in to this place.” She wants to “give the visitors the idea that they are in a privileged place with privileged people that work here.”
“I mean, all the people working here know that they work for the Pope, they work for a mission, rather than just having a simple work. And I would like to focus on this more and more,” she said.
Another challenge Jatta faces is balancing preservation of the art in the museums with accessibility to the public.
“I do think that it's very important to preserve what we have received from the past,” she said, “and at the same time, sharing it is one of our focuses. So it's important also to share the beauty in what we have here.”
The museums have recently made other changes as well, including launching an updated website at the end of January that is more user-friendly and includes an “Explore” section, where website visitors can view museum content right from their homes.
Expanding accessibility to the extensive collections of the museums, whether through the website or for in-person visitors is a major focus, Jatta said.
“The idea is to let the people and the visitors arriving spread out in the different museums…and so let them go into the different part of the museums that are not as often visited. We have wonderful parts of the museum that visitors generally do not go to, do not visit,” she said.
And the number of visitors to the museums continues to grow. In 2016, six million people visited the Vatican, she said, but that number is predicted to be even greater in 2017.
In Jan. and Feb. of 2017, “we had an increase of 18,000 people in the two months, compared to the other years,” she noted.
The large number of visitors is excellent for the museums, but not always great for protecting the artworks themselves.
Because of this, “we have a very important program for preservation of the entire spaces of the museum,” Jatta said, “which costs a lot in effort and money, but we do think that it's a very important part of our organization.”
Why should someone visit? The Vatican museums are a unique place, she said. For instance, it isn’t just one museum, but in fact many, all joined together. “So it's not only a museum of archeology – you have many other archeology museums in Rome or in other parts of Italy.”
What makes the Vatican museums unique is “the idea of having the different witnesses of the culture, art and faith, that's an important part, a fundamental part of this museum.”
For example, the ethnological museum has more than 80,000 pieces, from different continents, and all witnessing to the faith, she said. This museum is comprised of pieces that were given as gifts to the popes, especially Pius XI.
“But it really is an ongoing museum that is still receiving items from all over the continents and that's probably the most important aspect of our museums. The idea that they preserve witnesses of faith.”
Jatta was vice-director of the museums starting in June 2016, but before that, since 1996, she worked and led the prints section of the Vatican Library. “So I was always an art historian working within the Vatican walls,” she said.
She met Pope Francis while in her former job when she presented him with a work of art for the Jubilee of Mercy. “For sure, Pope Francis is very interested in art,” she continued, highlighting how he brought homeless to visit the Sistine Chapel because “he thought that they would never have the opportunity to see it and this is very important.”
He speaks “about art very often, and the sense that beauty and art link people is something very, very important that he tells us…and it's one of my ideas in leading these museums,” she said.
Mary Shovlain contributed to this story.
